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Story:The End of Eternity/E13
XIII Just as he had before the beginning of the Thousand Eternal Ritual, and just as he had been doing all his life, Arend found himself walking around an empty, ruined city, with no destination in mind and no reason to live. Arend had always been empty inside and out; always alone; never truly connected with anyone except Klaytaza. But even in this degree of solitude, he was always surrounded by people; the city he lived in at any moment was always abuzz with the sound of distant industry, rumbling and murmuring with the footsteps of people and the tasks they went about doing; in the horizon, something was always being lit up or moved or falling apart due to human hands. But now, with the Thousand Eternal Ritual so close to its climax, there were only a handful of surviving Keys and Masters, including himself and Klaytaza. No other souls existed in the City at all… and somehow, deep in his heart, Arend felt that there were no other souls still living on the earth as a whole. The signs of the Ritual’s end were suddenly very clear when Arend reappeared in the City. Although before, the temperature had been dropping slowly but surely, now it was perceptibly much lower. If not for the drastic lack of water near the city, there would definitely be snow falling on the dead metropolis; as it was, Arend was actively shivering almost every moment. In the sky, the gigantic red moon – named the Ark by Klaytaza – took up an immense part of the sky, which was colored red as a result of the sun’s light reflecting from the object that was so close to the earth. In reaction to its dropping, clouds blanketed and flanked the Ark tirelessly. And the closer the Ark became, the more Klaytaza opened up about the logistics of the end of the world. Before, she had refused to speak of the Ark’s impact and what exactly it would entail. Arend couldn’t tell if she simply did not know the information or chose not to share it with him, but the fact was that she would not relinquish the details in order to quench his curiosity. Now, when the end was so very close, she seemed to have no qualms about telling him what he wanted to know. The Ark would continue to fall right towards the City, drawn to the center of the Thousand Eternal Ritual. Before it would even get a chance to collide with the earth, it’s proximity would rip through the atmosphere and immediately induce massive levels of radiation that would eradicate all living organisms on the planet. Next, as the Ark inched closer, any remaining water on the planet would vaporize from the radiation and all the energy from the planets would emit nuclear energy – enough to completely rip apart the earth’s surface. Then, finally, as the Ark came within touching distance of the Earth, Klaytaza stated that “the Ark will open, and the floodgates of Paradise will follow, and fire will blanket all existence. As the flower of destruction blooms, the Creator will arise, and he will create all life anew.” The cradle would fall. And now that Arend had been side-tracked, trapped, and distracted, there was no stopping the rebirth of the life nursed within the immortal cradle. Once the true implications of the situation became known to him, Arend could do nothing more than silently trudge through the dead city until he came upon an unoccupied building (not like any of the buildings anywhere had any occupants left) that had a tall roof. He entered and walked up all the stairs in the building, his hands in his pocket and his Key following him, until he arrived at the roof of the skyscraper in a few minutes time. He could only walk to the very edge of the building, with his back facing the direction in which the Ark fell and his gaze focused upon the empty ruins all around him. The dead City stretched on for miles and miles, so immense that he could only barely see the area where the two of them had arrived via train. It was hard to believe and depressing to think that the City had less than a handful of occupants, and that its missing population would never return. At least, not until millions and millions of years had once again passed. Arend felt alone, full of despair and hopelessness, of course. But now, more than ever before, he felt an incredible weight of guilt and shame, for he had failed the only person who believed in his ideals and stood by him. He had failed Klaytaza. She was not human. She had no human heart or mind, felt no human emotions and had no opinions or ambitions. These were true, unshakable facts, but they were also lies. She had lived since the creation of the universe after the last Thousand Eternal Ritual, which had to have been more than a few billion years. She had known loneliness and isolation in unimaginable degrees, and felt despair in spades – but even so, Arend never imagined he could see such pain in her eyes as he saw when they both realized their flawed Annihilation could not come about. They had failed and they both knew it. Not even death could rid them of their guilt and self-loathing, for their death in this situation would be the very opposite of their intentions. “It’s not fair!” Arend suddenly shouted into the void ahead of him. He shouted to everything and everyone but himself; to the souls between one and perdition; to his lost mother and father who cared and never cared; to the girl he did not know but knew more than anyone else; to the sister, who resented him but wanted him to see the fruits of his labor; to the two original believers, the two original sinners; to his own soul, so blanketed in despair and loneliness that he would choose oblivion over redemption; to time and eternity themselves for never fully stopping and letting him just breathe without breathing; to Klaytaza, who only wanted him to save her. Her lip quivered, but her facial expression did not waver. Her mouth never curled up or down, her nose never crinkled, her eyes never widened, and her eyebrows never rose or fell – but her eyes told all the story. Her eyes cried no tears, for her facial scars did all the crying for them. Her eyes trembled not, for the human soul she had bred within her cold body wept for her. Her eyes did not turn bloodshot, for even if she had real blood pumping through her and giving her life, it would have run from her wrists long ago. Her eyes existed, as did the rest of her, only because she could not stop them from doing so. She did not accept Arend’s apology. The boy turned to her with, unlike her, red eyes and a tear-stained cheek. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry! I wanted to end it so badly. You know I did! You know more than anyone that I did! My hate… it was strong enough! It should have been strong enough! I shouldn’t have failed! We were right! I know we were!” Klaytaza turned to him, the scars of time leaving all the tears she needed to release. “Do not apologize to me, Master. I do not blame you for anything. I only thank you for having graced me with your contract.” This broke Arend’s heart. He stood and looked at her and felt everything. There was nothing for him to do but to stand there and watch the person he had disappointed most say that he had done nothing wrong, despite the immeasurable sorrow in her eyes. He could do nothing but shake as pain, fear, anger, sadness, guilt, depression – all the feelings he had forsaken, ignored, and been free from all these years came and hit him. Just when one feeling swept past his mind, another came and smacked him like a tide, and the tide only rose and rose until he felt breathless and began to drown. His fellow mankind had sinned and destroyed the earth – as if they cared about the earth or the universe at all. His parents turned their backs on him – as if they had ever been there for him in the first place. His sister looked at him with a glare and tears in her eyes and let him walk away – as if she wanted him there in the first place. His timeless lover had let him kill her – as if she loved him in the first place and not just the idea and concept of his submission to her desires. His Key and only true confidant had no grudge against him despite his destruction of her ambitions and only her ambitions – as if… as if… There was nothing. Now, he was completely empty. He could come up with no reason or issue to point that Klaytaza had ever done anything than love and support him unconditionally. She had acted for him even to the very limitations of what she could and could not say. She chose to go against all 998 of her fellow shinra beings all for his sake. She had, in her own words, endured billions of years just for him. It was then that Arend finally broke. All his fears, all his wishes and dreams, all his regrets, all things that held him back simply ceased to exist. He was broken, finally destroyed and broken down, and in that instant – in the vaporization of his self, his soul and his reason – he knew that there was no better time to strike than now. Klaytaza looked to Arend, sensing the sudden change in him. The boy turned away from Klaytaza and the dark emptiness ahead of him, looking instead to the gigantic falling Ark, the red cloud-streaked skies above it, and the clock tower – the tallest structure in the City – below it. He knew then, without gaining the knowledge in any logical way, that the clock tower was the center of the Thousand Eternal Ritual, and that he had to go there to kill any remaining Keys. He had to have Klaytaza absorb their power, and attempt to absorb the remaining celestial energy used for the Thousand Eternal Ritual, and he had to use this power to cleave time itself in two. Only if time stopped and was compressed in on itself would the Ark cease to fall, and only then could he forever stop its power from causing the rebirth of the earth. Now he truly had nothing to lose and nothing to gain. Arend Vitalis, truly and for the first time, had nothing. And in this truly liberated state, he remembered that this was not the end of things. For even if he could not end creation, he could still witness its final death throes for as long as possible, which was his original goal before meeting Klaytaza. And any surviving Keys to Eternity could meet his wrath, for whatever it was worth. He stepped towards the stairs of the skyscraper with the intent to move towards the clock tower. He knew without knowing that the earth would not survive another day, and he had only hours if he wanted to act before the collapse of the atmosphere spelled out his disintegration. And he also knew without knowing that Klaytaza would still follow him anywhere, not just because of their soul contract but because she knew there would be no disappointment here. Slightly, ever so slightly, perhaps even imperceptibly, Klaytaza smiled. She spoke to her master with the same unfeeling and unmoving voice she always emitted. “My Master, what has humanity amounted to?” “Absolutely nothing,” Arend replied. “And my Master, why have you awoken me?” “To end all existence.” “Can you bring the future to the present?” “Yes. The beginning and the end are one. To end one, I must end the other. I must end all.” “Good. Everything is as it should be. Well then, my Master, shall we begin the annihilation of the world?” “Yes. It is all we have left to do.” KEYS TO ETERNITY REMAINING: 5